Women in Islam

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Firukurji
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Joined: Sun Oct 08, 2006 10:45 pm

Post by Firukurji »

Egypt cleric OKs pants for women
REUTERS 18 September 2009, 01:12am IST
|
CAIRO: Egypt’s top Islamic authority has defended women’s rights to wear trousers in public following a high profile court case in neighboring Sudan where women were flogged for dressing in pants.

Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa said in a public lecture on Monday that trousers covering women’s bodies are permitted, emphazing they should be loose and not see through.

Gomaa’s remarks were published Wednesday in the Egyptian daily al- Shorouk as well as other newspaper. His answer was in response to a question from the audience.

Sudan caused a stir when it flogged 10 women for wearing trousers. One contested penalty and was let off with a fine for public indecency in a trial that garnered international attention.

Egypt also has vaguely worded indecency laws that can be widely applied, but women are given quite a bit of leeway in their attire.

While a vast majority of Egyptian women wear headscarves and robes, western style dresses, including trousers, is also quite common.
Firukurji
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Joined: Sun Oct 08, 2006 10:45 pm

Post by Firukurji »

Kuwait to Allow Women to Travel Without Husband's Consent
By Edward Yeranian
Cairo
21 October 2009


Kuwait's constitutional court ruled Wednesday that Kuwaiti women have the right to travel without their husband's permission, revoking a 1962 passport law. Women in other Gulf States, like Saudi Arabia, still need permission from a close male relative to travel.

Kuwait took another step in favor of women's rights when the country's constitutional court ruled that women do not need to obtain their husband's consent before obtaining a passport to travel.

The high court, whose rulings may not be appealed, struck down part of a 1962 law that stipulated that women may not be granted a passport without the approval of their husbands.

Kuwait granted women the right to vote in 2005. Tribal and hardline Islamist members of parliament opposed the move, before being outvoted.

It was not until 2009, however, that women were first elected to parliament. Kuwait's Islamists insist that Islamic law forbids women from holding positions of leadership.

The ruling by Kuwait's constitutional court states that the 1962 passport law, requiring a woman to obtain their husbands' consent, violated the state's constitution, which assures personal freedom and gender equality.

The high court reached its decision after hearing the case of a Kuwaiti woman whose husband had refused to hand over her passport and those of her children to prevent them from leaving the country.

Hala Mustafa is a senior editor with Egypt's Al-Ahram newspaper and editor of the periodical Al-Demoqratiya.

"Women in Kuwait are progressing today, and I think that this step is very positive," she said. "It could be seen in the view of many outside the Arab world as a very little step toward liberation of women or liberalization, in general. But taking into consideration the very conservative type of the [Persian] Gulf area in general - and Kuwait is part of this area - I think this could be considered a very significant step toward [opening up] the system and also as a kind of social revolution."

Mustafa says she thinks that the conservative Wahabite sect of Islam, which dominates parts of the Persian Gulf region, including Saudi Arabia, is responsible for the lack of gender equality in many Gulf countries.

"The debate in Saudi Arabia," she added, "is still over allowing women the right to drive their own cars. This signifies that the debate there still hasn't progressed beyond square one."
kmaherali
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Post by kmaherali »

Exclusive: The Aga Khan, Women and Development: The Path of Education

Rahim Kanani
Research Associate, Hauser Center for Nonprofits, Harvard University
Posted: December 21, 2009 02:10 AM

"I believe the message of Islam is the dignity with which we must treat women in society...and I think it is correct that education dignifies women," His Highness Karim Aga Khan, spiritual leader of the world's Shia Ismaili Muslims, explained to a BBC reporter at the turn of the century. Like his grandfather, Sir Sultan Mohamed Shah, who was once President of the League of Nations, the Aga Khan has been an ardent supporter of educating women in the developing world for decades. Recently celebrating his 73rd birthday, the 49th hereditary Imam and direct descendent of the Prophet Muhammad is still tireless in his effort, pragmatic in his approach, and strategic in his vision. As a religious leader, his moral obligation, rooted in the principles of Islam, holds him to both interpret the faith and improve the quality of life within the communities and societies in which his followers live. In his dual role, the Aga Khan is also founder and Chairman of one of the largest private development networks in the world, the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), active in over 25 countries and employing over 70,000 people.

In an interview with Dr. Tom Kessinger, head of the Aga Khan Foundation and Deputy Chairman of the Aga Khan Development Network, he asserts that "mothers are the primary nurturers of the family, and our experience and data shows that the more education women have the more successfully they play that role." Furthermore, he notes, "the daughter of a literate mother is more likely to finish school than the daughter of an illiterate mother." Education, therefore, has been a strong pillar of the Aga Khan's development efforts around the world. By targeting critical professions that tend to be highly populated amongst women such as nursing, midwifery, and pre-collegiate education, AKDN's strategic investment in the education of women also results in the delivery of essential public goods.

In Pakistan, the Aga Khan University's School of Nursing (AKU-SON), one of the many schools of AKU, has redefined the occupation's entry-level qualification. Building on the British-style diploma, AKU-SON has professionalized the field of nursing by offering undergraduate and graduate training. Moreover, establishing a leading institute of academic excellence nearly 30 years ago has raised the status of the profession in both remuneration and respect, and as a result, steadily increased the status of women. Calculated, long-term investments that tackle multiple issues at once through, for example, the path of education, distinguish AKDN from many other development agencies.

Another example of matching the key needs of women to the most urgent needs of a population focuses on AKDN's strategic involvement in the Badakshan province of northeast Afghanistan. Attempting to address one of the worst rates of maternal mortality in the world, AKDN has developed an initiative for young women--recruited by their villages--to attend midwifery training for 18 months. These and countless other ambitions realized by His Highness are progressively uplifting the status of women and providing them with access to social, economic and political opportunities otherwise unavailable in developing societies.


"The AKDN has integrated initiatives in each of these professions [nursing, midwifery, and pre-collegiate education], and with clear direction by His Highness, the focus is to not only build competence in these fields through teaching, but to also build confidence within the trainees. While competence is important, it is confidence that allows one to undertake a larger leadership role in these settings," continued Dr. Kessinger.

In a fundamental shift of consciousness within the international development framework, women and girls are finally viewed as propellers of progress, rather than as impediments to growth. And while firmly placed on today's global agenda of development, and fully integrated into world fora such as the Clinton Global Initiative and the World Economic Forum, the value of investing in the education of women and girls is far from a novel consideration: in 1945, the Aga Khan's grandfather stated that "Personally, if I had two children, and one was a boy and the other was a girl, and if I could afford to only educate one, I would have no hesitation in giving the higher education to the girl." As women place a much stronger emphasis on educating their children--boys and girls--than men do, and invest their income accordingly, it is no longer a secret that to educate a woman is to educate a nation.

Today, the AKDN continues to reflect this measured approach in all its development efforts around the world, and recognizes women and girls' education as a vital component to building respectful, equal and stable societies. As development agencies integrate their efforts to reduce the massive inequalities plaguing women and girls worldwide -- an undeniable moral disaster of our time -- we must never forget the value of human dignity, and the power of education to dignify.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rahim-kan ... 94200.html

*****
Rahim Kanani is a Research Associate in Justice and Human Rights at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard Kennedy School.

He has worked with with Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard School of Public Health’s Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research, Harvard’s Pluralism Project, Amnesty International’s USA Headquarters, the U.S. Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, and various United Nations agencies focusing on issues of international torture and gender violence in conflict zones.

Rahim holds a BA in Philosophy from the University of Western Ontario and an MSc in Global Politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

He can be reached at rahim_kanani [at] hks.harvard.edu.
kmaherali
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January 10, 2010
Op-Ed Columnist
Religion and Women
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Religions derive their power and popularity in part from the ethical compass they offer. So why do so many faiths help perpetuate something that most of us regard as profoundly unethical: the oppression of women?

It is not that warlords in Congo cite Scripture to justify their mass rapes (although the last warlord I met there called himself a pastor and wore a button reading “rebels for Christ”). It’s not that brides are burned in India as part of a Hindu ritual. And there’s no verse in the Koran that instructs Afghan thugs to throw acid in the faces of girls who dare to go to school.

Yet these kinds of abuses — along with more banal injustices, like slapping a girlfriend or paying women less for their work — arise out of a social context in which women are, often, second-class citizens. That’s a context that religions have helped shape, and not pushed hard to change.

“Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths, creating an environment in which violations against women are justified,” former President Jimmy Carter noted in a speech last month to the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Australia.

“The belief that women are inferior human beings in the eyes of God,” Mr. Carter continued, “gives excuses to the brutal husband who beats his wife, the soldier who rapes a woman, the employer who has a lower pay scale for women employees, or parents who decide to abort a female embryo.”

Mr. Carter, who sees religion as one of the “basic causes of the violation of women’s rights,” is a member of The Elders, a small council of retired leaders brought together by Nelson Mandela. The Elders are focusing on the role of religion in oppressing women, and they have issued a joint statement calling on religious leaders to “change all discriminatory practices within their own religions and traditions.”

The Elders are neither irreligious nor rabble-rousers. They include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and they begin their meetings with a moment for silent prayer.

“The Elders are not attacking religion as such,” noted Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland and United Nations high commissioner for human rights. But she added, “We all recognized that if there’s one overarching issue for women it’s the way that religion can be manipulated to subjugate women.”

There is of course plenty of fodder, in both the Koran and the Bible, for those who seek a theology of discrimination.

The New Testament quotes St. Paul (I Timothy 2) as saying that women “must be silent.” Deuteronomy declares that if a woman does not bleed on her wedding night, “the men of her town shall stone her to death.” An Orthodox Jewish prayer thanks God, “who hast not made me a woman.” The Koran stipulates that a woman shall inherit less than a man, and that a woman’s testimony counts for half a man’s.

In fairness, many scholars believe that Paul did not in fact write the passages calling on women to be silent. And Islam started out as socially progressive for women — banning female infanticide and limiting polygamy — but did not continue to advance.

But religious leaders sanctified existing social structures, instead of pushing for justice. In Africa, it would help enormously if religious figures spoke up for widows disenfranchised by unjust inheritance traditions — or for rape victims, or for schoolgirls facing sexual demands from their teachers. Instead, in Uganda, the influence of conservative Christians is found in a grotesque push to execute gays.

Yet paradoxically, the churches in Africa that have done the most to empower women have been conservative ones led by evangelicals and especially Pentecostals. In particular, Pentecostals encourage women to take leadership roles, and for many women this is the first time they have been trusted with authority and found their opinions respected. In rural Africa, Pentecostal churches are becoming a significant force to emancipate women.

That’s a glimmer of hope that reminds us that while religion is part of the problem, it can also be part of the solution. The Dalai Lama has taken that step and calls himself a feminist.

Another excellent precedent is slavery. Each of the Abrahamic faiths accepted slavery. Muhammad owned slaves, and St. Paul seems to have condoned slavery. Yet the pioneers of the abolitionist movement were Quakers and evangelicals like William Wilberforce. People of faith ultimately worked ferociously to overthrow an oppressive institution that churches had previously condoned.

Today, when religious institutions exclude women from their hierarchies and rituals, the inevitable implication is that females are inferior. The Elders are right that religious groups should stand up for a simple ethical principle: any person’s human rights should be sacred, and not depend on something as earthly as their genitals.



I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, On the Ground. Please also join me on Facebook, watch my YouTube videos and follow me on Twitter.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/opini ... nted=print
kmaherali
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American Muslims
Women behaving badly in mosques
By Uzma Mariam Ahmed,
January 18, 2010

Women in American mosques are loud and messy. They allow their children to run free. They socialize and chatter during khutbas. They rush out after the prayers and don’t participate in cleaning or re-organizing the space. They wear inappropriate clothes, allowing their scarves to slip off their heads, and dousing themselves with strong perfumes. They insist on coming to the mosque while menstruating, and pollute the consecrated space with their unclean presence. These stereotypes about women in mosques are commonplace and especially prevalent in American mosques.

Many Muslim American men attest to seeing or hearing of this behavior during Friday prayers at their local mosques. What eludes the casual observer, like the majority of Muslim men who have never entered or prayed in a women’s prayer section, is the root cause of these problems.

Our community’s perception that women behave badly in mosques is intimately tied to the belief that women’s spirituality and prayers carry less importance than men’s. This collective opinion of female spiritual inferiority has settled into both the ritualistic and social practices of American Muslims, and explains both the dismissive treatment women receive in mosques and, in turn, the behaviors they exhibit because of this ostracization.

The belief is so deeply ingrained in American Muslims that we act upon it in social as well as religious contexts. For instance, even at dinner parties, Muslim men usually socialize in larger, neater, and child-free spaces, and they pray together in congregation. The women, on the other hand, haphazardly pray (or don’t pray) on their own wherever they can find a nook, and are expected to focus their attention on their children and on serving the meals and cleaning up afterwards. This paradigm of male spiritual superiority, which carries into the mosque, where men’s spaces are invariably more spacious, serene, and free of children, creates a deep concern for the many professional Muslim women who are struggling to reconcile the neglect which they experience in mosques with the respect with which they are treated in other contexts.

This treatment of women is in contravention to the Q’uran and Prophetic tradition, which equate the value of men and women’s worship and spirituality. The Q’uran unequivocally states that Allah has reserved His forgiveness and rewards for all people who follow His path. The fact that He explicitly mentions both men and women in each line, rather than just saying “people,” accentuates this gender equality:

Surely the men who submit and the women who submit, and the believing men and the believing women, and the obeying men and the obeying women, and the truthful men and the truthful women, and the patient men and the patient women and the humble men and the humble women, and the almsgiving men and the almsgiving women, and the fasting men and the fasting women, and the men who guard their private parts and the women who guard, and the men who remember Allah much and the women who remember -- Allah has prepared for them forgiveness and a mighty reward (Al-Ahzab 33:35).

Surah Al-Tawbah similarly makes it a point to mention men and women separately:

And (as for) the believing men and the believing women, they are guardians of each other; they enjoin good and forbid evil and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, and obey Allah and His Apostle; (as for) these, Allah will show mercy to them; surely Allah is Mighty, Wise (Al-Tawbah 9:71).

The gender equality affirmed in the Q’uran was apparent in the mosques of the earliest Muslims; the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) led men and women in prayers in the same hall, without walls or separations between genders.

The behavior of Muslim American women in mosques, as well their designated spaces in the mosque, indicate that American Muslims have not internalized these clear standards of equality. The rationale many mosque-goers offer is that because women are louder, less responsible, and less focused on worship, they should be excluded from the main prayer areas. This reasoning erroneously equates the cause with the effect. The real reason why women do not feel invested in their mosques and purportedly behave badly is precisely because they are physically and intellectually separated from the area where the prayers are being conducted and the khutbas delivered..

When women sit in cramped balconies or stuffy basements, separated from the khateeb by walls or partitions, they miss the real impact of the khutba. They cannot see the khateeb, often cannot hear him properly, and cannot directly ask him a question following the lecture. It is no different than listening to the khutbaon the radio at home. The spiritual impact is dulled, and the chatter of other women, who are equally distracted and unconnected due to the physical separation from the speaker, further exacerbates the problem. Furthermore, when the khateeb is out of view, the primary motivation to attend the mosque becomes the ability to socialize with other Muslims. Only by providing women with a direct view of the khateeb will this problem find a resolution.

Another consequence of the erroneous assumption that women’s spirituality does not match that of men’s, is the practice of leaving children with the women. This, again, is not rooted entirely in tradition. There are several hadith indicating that the Prophet would not only welcome children into the men’s section, but would even hold children in his arms or balance them on his shoulders while leading the prayers. It is extremely rare that American Muslim men hold their children during prayers. Most of the so-called children’s sections are usually designed or situated in a way that only mothers can enter and discipline their little ones. Men are therefore absolved of their parental duties, and left free to concentrate on their prayers. Until there are family sections in mosques, where both men and women can monitor their children and where families can pray together, the inequality that results from children being consigned to women only spaces will persist.

Also exacerbating the situation is a tangle of generational and cultural issues. American Muslims immigrants bring the attitudes and expectations of their own culture and generation with them into the mosque. Many neighborhoods in Pakistan, for instance, do not have accommodations for women in the local mosques. When the women from these neighborhoods begin attending mosques in America, they do so without any previous understanding of mosque etiquettes. This problem, of course, is also generational, and it often seems that the women, who were raised here and have gone through the American educational system, have less trouble conforming to mosque etiquette. The concept of listening to lectures, keeping your voice down, organizing groups to enter and exit in an orderly manner, are all inculcated in American school children. The behavior of Muslims bred in American mimics their behavior in educational and professional settings.

As long as the American Muslim community’s perception that women behave badly in mosques remains tied to the erroneous belief that women’s spirituality and prayers are inferior to men’s, we will continue to see the same patterns of behavior recycled again and again—-men (and women) looking on with ill concealed disapproval at cramped, disorganized spaces filled with chattering women and screaming children. Until American Muslims differentiate between the cause and effect of misbehavior at the mosque, rather than conflating the two, there can be no real changes in American mosques.

(Photo: John Raineri)

Uzma Mariam Ahmed is a contributing writer to Altmuslimah

http://www.altmuslimah.com/a/b/a/3512/
kmaherali
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There is a photo of the book at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/opini ... ?th&emc=th

March 4, 2010
Op-Ed Columnist
Divorced Before Puberty
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

It’s hard to imagine that there have been many younger divorcées — or braver ones — than a pint-size third grader named Nujood Ali.

Nujood is a Yemeni girl, and it’s no coincidence that Yemen abounds both in child brides and in terrorists (and now, thanks to Nujood, children who have been divorced). Societies that repress women tend to be prone to violence.

For Nujood, the nightmare began at age 10 when her family told her that she would be marrying a deliveryman in his 30s. Although Nujood’s mother was unhappy, she did not protest. “In our country it’s the men who give the orders, and the women who follow them,” Nujood writes in a powerful new autobiography just published in the United States this week, “I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced.”

Her new husband forced her to drop out of school (she was in the second grade) because a married woman shouldn’t be a student. At her wedding, Nujood sat in the corner, her face swollen from crying.

Nujood’s father asked the husband not to touch her until a year after she had had her first menstrual period. But as soon as they were married, she writes, her husband forced himself on her.

He soon began to beat her as well, the memoir says, and her new mother-in-law offered no sympathy. “Hit her even harder,” the mother-in-law would tell her son.

Nujood had heard that judges could grant divorces, so one day she sneaked away, jumped into a taxi and asked to go to the courthouse.

“I want to talk to the judge,” the book quotes Nujood as forlornly telling a woman in the courthouse.

“Which judge are you looking for?”

“I just want to speak to a judge, that’s all.”

“But there are lots of judges in this courthouse.”

“Take me to a judge — it doesn’t matter which one!”

When she finally encountered a judge, Nujood declared firmly: “I want a divorce!”

Yemeni journalists turned Nujood into a cause célèbre, and she eventually won her divorce. The publicity inspired others, including an 8-year-old Saudi girl married to a man in his 50s, to seek annulments and divorces.

As a pioneer, Nujood came to the United States and was honored in 2008 as one of Glamour magazine’s “Women of the Year.” Indeed, Nujood is probably the only third grader whom Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has described as “one of the greatest women I have ever seen.”

Nujood’s memoir spent five weeks as the No. 1 best-seller in France. It is being published in 18 other languages, including her own native language of Arabic.

I asked Nujood, now 12, what she thought of her life as a best-selling author. She said the foreign editions didn’t matter much to her, but she was looking forward to seeing it in Arabic. Since her divorce, she has returned to school and to her own family, which she is supporting with her book royalties.

At first, Nujood’s brothers criticized her for shaming the family. But now that Nujood is the main breadwinner, everybody sees things a bit differently. “They’re very nice to her now,” said Khadija al-Salami, a filmmaker who mentors Nujood and who translated for me. “They treat her like a queen.”

Yemen is one of my favorite countries, with glorious architecture and enormously hospitable people. Yet Yemen appears to be a time bomb. It is a hothouse for Al Qaeda and also faces an on-and-off war in the north and a secessionist movement in the south. It’s no coincidence that Yemen is also ranked dead last in the World Economic Forum’s global gender gap index.

There are a couple of reasons countries that marginalize women often end up unstable.

First, those countries usually have very high birth rates, and that means a youth bulge in the population. One of the factors that most correlates to social conflict is the proportion of young men ages 15 to 24.

Second, those countries also tend to practice polygamy and have higher death rates for girls. That means fewer marriageable women — and more frustrated bachelors to be recruited by extremists.

So educating Nujood and giving her a chance to become a lawyer — her dream — isn’t just a matter of fairness. It’s also a way to help tame the entire country.

Consider Bangladesh. After it split off from Pakistan, Bangladesh began to educate girls in a way that Pakistan has never done. The educated women staffed an emerging garment industry and civil society, and those educated women are one reason Bangladesh is today far more stable than Pakistan.

The United States last month announced $150 million in military assistance for Yemen to fight extremists. In contrast, it costs just $50 to send a girl to public school for a year — and little girls like Nujood may prove more effective than missiles at defeating terrorists.



I invite you to visit my blog, On the Ground. Please also join me on Facebook, watch my YouTube videos and follow me on Twitter.

Gail Collins is off today.
kmaherali
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March 14, 2010
Op-Ed Columnist
Driving Miss Saudi
By MAUREEN DOWD

In other capitals of the world, it would not have been an extraordinary scene.

An opening at a hot new art gallery with men and women mingling and enjoying themselves.

But in this case, part of the frisson was nerves. Would the marauding religious police see unmarried — and some uncovered — women talking freely with men in the merry crowd of 600 and stage a raid?

It was an unlikely moment, SoHo comes to Saudi Arabia — the first mixed exhibition anyone can remember in Riyadh, the stultifying capital of a country that bans any exhibition of skin, fun or romance.

But the most astonishing part was that the Islamic purity enforcers failed to show up at Art Pure.

“I was worried, but the religious police just sort of disappeared,” recalled Mounira Ajlani, the mother of Noura Bouzo, a 27-year-old artist featured at the exhibition who painted the saucy “Saudi Bling.” “It was very relaxed, very normal. Everyone was saying, ‘Are we in Saudi Arabia?’ ”

Sarah, a young Saudi professional who was at the gallery that night, agreed: “It was remarkable. You saw women covered from head to toe. You saw women uncovered. You saw men of all different classes come, and they were extremely comfortable, and everyone looked at the art and left.”

Progress is measured by a sundial in this stunted desert kingdom. Sarah dryly refers to it as “Saudi time.”

As women nudge their way into the work force, they are still hampered by archaic tribal rules and patriarchal religious ones.

An American Muslim working here says there are hard adjustments, like hearing men use the occasional epithet “Dog” to address her, and not being able to leave the airport coming home from a business trip because she has no husband or male relative to pick her up.

She had to secure a letter from her employer stating that she could leave the airport on her own. When she wanted to buy a car, she had to use the subterfuge of having a male friend buy it for her, and even then, she can’t drive it except in one of the exclusive compounds with looser rules.

A recent article in The Arab News headlined “Working Mothers in a Double Bind” showed the growing pains of Saudi suffragettes. It told of a woman who secretly hired a cook to deliver meals and assuage her husband’s demand for home-cooked dinners. When her husband caught her, he divorced her — and Saudi divorces are easy as long as you’re male.

“He forgot his promises and left me just because of food,” said the woman, Huda.

Saudi Arabia is in the throes of differentiating between cultural customs for women — like wearing the abaya, not driving and not mixing with men — and actual dictates of the Koran. Many Saudis stressed that their mothers didn’t wear head scarves.

“Personally, I push the envelope,” Sarah said. “I don’t cover my hair.” If she is approached by the mutawa — the religious police — she’s willing to back chat.

“So if a guy is yelling at me, telling me to cover my hair, there’s something we say in Arabic that means, ‘You really shouldn’t be looking in the first place,’ ” she said. “And actually, Islam argues that men should keep their gaze down. So you can argue back to the mutawa, if you know how to do it properly.”

Sarah and others I talked to in the privileged, educated set preferred not to use their full names. Free speech can be costly. “You can’t push the envelope too much or you start alienating a part of our society,” Sarah concedes, “because a part of our society is very conservative, and you have to respect that.”

It is feminism played in adagio. Young women talk about wanting abayas in pastels or made of yoga materials, being able to go out with a group of male and female friends to chic restaurants, and being able to score visas for visiting pals.

“We’re allowed to invite friends now, which is a big thing,” Sarah said. “We’re at the stage where you still have to pull some strings, but in four or five years ...”

Her friend Reema said that Americans are sometimes shocked to see Saudi women and realize “we’re not cowering, we’re actually quite professional. Are there issues here? Absolutely. There isn’t a place in the world that doesn’t have issues.

“I’d like to live in a Saudi where the woman that chooses to cover from top-to-bottom is equally as respected as the woman who chooses not to cover her face, and people from the West can accept that it is a lifestyle choice, inasmuch as wearing a miniskirt or a long, flowing dress is a choice. I find a lot of people minimize the women’s cause in Saudi by how we dress, and that is actually offensive.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/opini ... nted=print
kmaherali
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April 11, 2010
Op-Ed Columnist
Worlds Without Women
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON

When I was in Saudi Arabia, I had tea and sweets with a group of educated and sophisticated young professional women.

I asked why they were not more upset about living in a country where women’s rights were strangled, an inbred and autocratic state more like an archaic men’s club than a modern nation. They told me, somewhat defensively, that the kingdom was moving at its own pace, glacial as that seemed to outsiders.

How could such spirited women, smart and successful on every other level, acquiesce in their own subordination?

I was puzzling over that one when it hit me: As a Catholic woman, I was doing the same thing.

I, too, belonged to an inbred and wealthy men’s club cloistered behind walls and disdaining modernity.

I, too, remained part of an autocratic society that repressed women and ignored their progress in the secular world.

I, too, rationalized as men in dresses allowed our religious kingdom to decay and to cling to outdated misogynistic rituals, blind to the benefits of welcoming women’s brains, talents and hearts into their ancient fraternity.

To circumscribe women, Saudi Arabia took Islam’s moral codes and orthodoxy to extremes not outlined by Muhammad; the Catholic Church took its moral codes and orthodoxy to extremes not outlined by Jesus. In the New Testament, Jesus is surrounded by strong women and never advocates that any woman — whether she’s his mother or a prostitute — be treated as a second-class citizen.

Negating women is at the heart of the church’s hideous — and criminal — indifference to the welfare of boys and girls in its priests’ care. Lisa Miller writes in Newsweek’s cover story about the danger of continuing to marginalize women in a disgraced church that has Mary at the center of its founding story:

“In the Roman Catholic corporation, the senior executives live and work, as they have for a thousand years, eschewing not just marriage, but intimacy with women ... not to mention any chance to familiarize themselves with the earthy, primal messiness of families and children.” No wonder that, having closed themselves off from women and everything maternal, they treated children as collateral damage, a necessary sacrifice to save face for Mother Church.

And the sins of the fathers just keep coming. On Friday, The Associated Press broke the latest story pointing the finger of blame directly at Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, quoting from a letter written in Latin in which he resisted pleas to defrock a California priest who had sexually molested children.

As the longtime Vatican enforcer, the archconservative Ratzinger — now Pope Benedict XVI — moved avidly to persecute dissenters. But with molesters, he was plodding and even merciful.

As the A.P. reported, the Oakland diocese recommended defrocking Father Stephen Kiesle in 1981. The priest had pleaded no contest and was sentenced to three years’ probation in 1978 in a case in which he was accused of tying up and molesting two boys in a church rectory.

In 1982, the Oakland diocese got what it termed a “rather curt” response from the Vatican. It wasn’t until 1985 that “God’s Rottweiler” finally got around to addressing the California bishop’s concern. He sent his letter urging the diocese to give the 38-year-old pedophile “as much paternal care as possible” and to consider “his young age.” Ratzinger should have been more alarmed by the young age of the priest’s victims; that’s what maternal care would have entailed.

As in so many other cases, the primary concern seemed to be shielding the church from scandal. Chillingly, outrageously, the future pope told the Oakland bishop to consider the “good of the universal church” before granting the priest’s own request to give up the collar — even though the bishop had advised Rome that the scandal would likely be greater if the priest were not punished.

While the Vatican sat on the case — asking the diocese to resubmit the files, saying they might have been lost — Kiesle volunteered as a youth minister at a church north of Oakland. The A.P. also reported that even after the priest was finally defrocked in 1987, he continued to volunteer with children in the Oakland diocese; repeated warnings to church officials were ignored.

The Vatican must realize that the church’s belligerent, resentful and paranoid response to the global scandal is not working because it now says it will cooperate with secular justice systems and that the pope will have more meetings with victims. It is too little, too late.

The church that through the ages taught me and other children right from wrong did not know right from wrong when it came to children. Crimes were swept under the rectory rug, and molesters were protected to molest again for the “good of the universal church.” And that is bad, very bad — a mortal sin.

The church has had theological schisms. This is an emotional schism. The pope is morally compromised. Take it from a sister.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/opini ... ?th&emc=th
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Libya wastes state cash on women, says Gaddafi's son

LIBYA is wasting its resources on women who prefer to get married and stay at home rather than work, according to Muammar Gaddafi's son.

"Women don't face any kind of discrimination in Libya. Women and men are equal," Seif al-Islam Gaddafi told students, academics and dignitaries at the American University in Cairo.

"Women are very powerful in Libyan society. They are in the army, they are pilots... women are taking part in every company, any ministry," he told the packed auditorium, adding "they can drive" in a dig at Saudi Arabia, with which Libya had tense relations for years.

"The problem in Libya is that they waste the resources of the society . . . the state spends a lot of money to educate women and then they get married and stay at home.

"This is the problem in Libya - the women."


Muammar Gaddafi, who has ruled Libya for over 40 years and who has in the past described himself as a defender of feminism, has a unit of women-only bodyguards trained at an elite Libyan officers' academy.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaki ... 5862820596
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SFU program to offer insight into social issues among Muslims

BURNABY, B.C. – How do Muslim cultures perceive and respond to historically controversial gender-related issues such as feminism, homosexuality and family law?

International scholars are coming together at Simon Fraser University to view, under diverse lenses, how varied and controversial social and religious issues and concepts shape Muslim women’s lives.

SFU’s Centre for the Comparative Study of Muslim Societies and Cultures (CCSMSC) is offering the program, Expressions of Diversity: An Introduction to Muslim Cultures, at the Harbour Centre, Vancouver campus from July 19 to 30.

“We’re bringing together 17 faculty from departments of history, literature, religion, anthropology, art, law, international studies, education and women’s studies to discuss diverse and evolving Muslim experiences, past and present,” says Derryl Maclean, CCSMSC director.

“In this stimulating environment, program participants will be equipped with the resources and skills to understand the heritages, contributions to world history and contemporary relevance of Muslim peoples. The range of approaches and subjects covered will take us well beyond the rhetoric of a single Islamic system of religion and culture.”

Maclean notes that, in the second week of this third annual offering of the program, participants will analyse “the much misunderstood topic of gender in the Muslim world by traversing many topics. They include: formative milieus of the Qur’an and hadith, Islamic family law, transnational discourses of Muslim women, Muslim discussions in Persian and Swahili literature, Arab film and Uyghur society.”

The Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations at Aga Khan University is co-sponsoring this SFU program, which will include a bus tour of Muslim spaces in Greater Vancouver.

To register for the course contact Ellen Vaillancourt, 778.782.5278.

International scholars who have collectively written more than 50 books on Muslim societies and cultures will teach the CCSMSC’s third annual offering of Expressions of Diversity: An Introduction to Muslim Cultures. Among the program instructors are:

Andrew Rippin (University of Victoria, B.C.) is an internationally renowned scholar of Qur’anic interpretive traditions, and the author/editor of a dozen books, including Islam in the Eyes of the West. Rippin will discuss scholarly debates surrounding the origin of the Qur’an and variations in Muslim interpretation of the scripture.

Zayn Kassam (Pomona College, Claremont, Calif.) is a specialist on theoretical interpretations of gender in Islam and the author of the book For what Sin Was She Slain: a Muslim Theology of Feminism. Kassam will present a session on framing Muslim gender through the Qur’an and other texts with a focus on global issues related to gender activism.

Farouk Topan (Aga Khan University, London, England) teaches East African Swahili literature. He authored the book Swahili Modernities: Culture, Politics and Identity on the East Coast of Africa. Topan will examine the matrix of history and culture among Swahili people and the influence this matrix has on gendered literature and music among Muslims on East Africa’s coast.

http://www.vancouverite.com/2010/07/16/ ... g-muslims/
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Interesting book

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/157003 ... 600_snp_dp

Women Mystics and Sufi Shrines in India (Studies in Comparative Religion) [Hardcover]
Kelly Pemberton
Kelly Pemberton (Author)

Editorial Reviews
Product Description

Women Mystics and Sufi Shrines in India combines historical data with years of ethnographic fieldwork to investigate women's participation in the culture of Sufi shrines in India and the manner in which this participation both complicates and sustains traditional conceptions of Islamic womanhood. Kelly Pemberton's fieldwork offers an assessment of the contemporary circumstances under which a woman may be recognized as a spiritual authority or guide--despite official denial of such status--and an examination of the discrepancies between the commonly held belief that women cannot perform in the public setting of shrines and her own observations of women doing precisely that. She demonstrates that the existence of multiple models of master and disciple relationships have opened avenues for women to be recognized as spiritual authorities in their own right. Specifically Pemberton explores the work of performance, recitation, and ritual mediation carried out by women connected with Sufi orders through kinship and spiritual ties, and she maps shifting ideas about women's involvement in public ritual events in a variety of contexts, circumstances, and genres of performance. She also highlights the private petitioning of saints, the Prophet, and God performed by poor women of low social standing in Bihar Sharif. These women are often perceived as being exceptionally close to God yet are compelled to operate outside the public sphere of major shrines.

From the Inside Flap

Throughout this groundbreaking study, Pemberton sets observed practices of lived religious experiences against the boundaries established by prescriptive behavioral models of Islam to illustrate how the varied reasons given for why women cannot become spiritual masters conflict with the need in Sufi circles for them to do exactly that. Thus this work also invites further inquiry into the ambiguities to be found in Islam's foundational framework for belief and practice.
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WORLD AFFAIRS COMMENTARY BY RAHIM KANANICGI 2010:

Q&A with Her Majesty Queen Rania on the Education of Women and Girls

Cross-posted with the Huffington Post

At the 2010 Clinton Global Initiative being held this week in New York City, I posed a question to Her Majesty Queen Rania of Jordan regarding educational access for women and girls in the Middle East. The Q&A is below, and the full plenary session on Empowering Girls and Women is embedded beneath the interview.

Rahim Kanani: What is the single biggest challenge facing women and girls in the middle east regarding educational access, and what do you think the most promising solution is?

Her Majesty Queen Rania: I think generally the Middle East and African Region is one of the biggest spenders on education. In 12 countries in the Middle East, more girls are in school, especially in universities, than we have males. Yes is some countries there is the challenge to access and that has a lot to do with entrenched mindsets that need to be changed, but I think more importantly, the bigger challenge for us is how to get women into the labor market. That’s what we really need to confront. But also, when you talk about changing mindsets, it’s demonstrating what it really means when you say education. It’s not just about educating a woman. When you educate a woman, you beat poverty, because women spend 90% of their earnings back into the family, where as men spend only 30 to 40%. It’s a very interesting statistic. It’s also a social vaccine. If all children received a complete primary education, over the next 10 years you can prevent 7 million cases of HIV/AIDS. Now that’s a staggering statistic. Another example is education as a midwife. When a midwife is educated, maternal mortality levels go down by 10% for every extra year of education received. A child is 50% more likely to make it to their 5th birthday if their mother is literate, so it’s not just about ‘doing girls a favor’, but it’s about benefits that cascade throughout society that really make a huge difference. So when people really understand what the value of education truly is, it’s such a compelling argument that it’s difficult not to make that a priority for policymakers.

http://www.rahimkanani.com/2010/09/22/c ... and-girls/
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There is a related video linked at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/27/world ... es&emc=a22

December 26, 2010
Necessity Pushes Pakistani Women Into Jobs and Peril
By ADAM B. ELLICK

KARACHI, Pakistan — Dinner at Rabia Sultana’s house is now served over a cold silence. Her family has not spoken to her since May, when Ms. Sultana, 21, swapped her home life for a cashier’s job at McDonald’s.

Her conservative brother berated Ms. Sultana for damaging the family’s honor by taking a job in which she interacts with men — and especially one that requires her to shed her burqa in favor of a short-sleeved McDonald’s uniform.

Then he confiscated her uniform, slapped her across the face and threatened to break her legs if he saw her outside the home.

Her family may be outraged, but they are also in need. Ms. Sultana donates her $100 monthly salary to supplement the household budget for expenses that the men in her family can no longer pay for, including school fees for her younger sisters.

Ms. Sultana is part of a small but growing generation of lower-class young women here who are entering service-sector jobs to support their families, and by extension, pitting their religious and cultural traditions against economic desperation.

The women are pressed into the work force not by nascent feminism but by inflation, which has spiked to 12.7 percent from 1.4 percent in the past seven years. As a result, one salary — the man’s salary — can no longer feed a family.

“It’s not just the economic need, but need of the nation,” said Rafiq Rangoonwala, the chief executive officer of KFC Pakistan, who has challenged his managers to double the number of women in his work force by next year. “Otherwise, Pakistan will never progress. We’ll always remain a third-world country because 15 percent of the people cannot feed 85 percent of the population.”

Female employment at KFC in Pakistan has risen 125 percent in the past five years.

Several chains like McDonald’s and the supermarket behemoth Makro, where the number of women has quadrupled since 2006, have introduced free transit services for female employees to protect them from harassment and to help persuade them take jobs where they may face hostility. “We’re a society in transition,” said Zeenat Hisam, a senior researcher at the Pakistan Institute of Labor Education and Research. “Men in Pakistan haven’t changed, and they’re not changing as fast as our women. Men want to keep their power in their hand.

“The majority of the people here believe in the traditional interpretation of Islam, and they get very upset because religious leaders tell them it’s not proper for women to go out and to work and to serve strange men.”

More than 100 young women who recently entered service jobs told of continual harassment.

At work, some women spend more time deflecting abuse from customers than serving them. On the way home, they are heckled in buses and condemned by neighbors. It is so common for brothers to confiscate their uniforms that McDonald’s provides women with three sets.

“If I leave this job, everything would be O.K. at home,” Ms. Sultana said. “But then there’d be a huge impact on our house. I want to make something of myself, and for my sisters, who are at home and don’t know anything about the outside world.”

So far, the movement of women into the service sector has been largely limited to Karachi. Elsewhere across Pakistan, women are still mostly relegated to their homes, or they take jobs in traditional labor settings like women-only stitching factories or girls’ schools, where salaries can be half of those in the service industry. Even the most trailblazing of companies, like KFC, still employ 90 percent men.

Pakistan ranked 133rd out of the 134 countries on the 2010 Global Gender Gap Report’s list of women’s economic participation.

While there is no reliable data on the number of women who specifically enter the service sector, Pakistan’s female work force hovers around 20 percent, among the lowest of any Muslim country.

Some women, like Saima, 22, are forced to lead secret lives to earn $175 a month. Her father’s shopkeeper’s salary does not cover the family’s expenses. Without a university degree, the only job Saima could find was at a call center of a major restaurant’s delivery department. But she impressed the manger so much that he offered her a higher-paying waitress job at a branch near her home.

She reluctantly agreed, but pleaded to be sent to a restaurant two hours away so she would not be spotted by family members and neighbors.

After three years, her family still thinks she works in the basement of a call center. On several occasions, she served old friends who did not recognize her without a head scarf. Her confidence has soared, but she is overwhelmed with guilt.

“I’ve completely changed myself here,” she said in the corner booth of her restaurant before her co-workers arrived. “But honestly, I’m not happy with what I’m doing.”

The women interviewed said they had to battle stereotypes that suggested that women who work were sexually promiscuous. Sometimes men misinterpret simple acts of customer service, like a smile. Fauzia, who works as a cashier at KFC, said that last year a customer was so taken with her smile that he followed her out the door and tried to force her into his car before she escaped.

Sunila Yusuf, a saleswoman who wears pink traditional clothes at home but skintight jeans at the trendy clothing boutique in the Park Towers shopping mall, said her fiancé had offered to pay her a $100 monthly wage if she would stay at home.

“He knows that Pakistani men don’t respect women,” she said.

Hina, who works the counter at KFC, said her brothers, who also work fast-food jobs, worried that she had become “too sharp and too exposed.”

“They can look at other people’s girls,” Hina said with a grimace. “But they want their own girls hidden.”

Mr. Rangoonwala, the KFC Pakistan executive, said: “Unfortunately, our society is a hypocritical society. We have two sets of rules, one for males and one for females.”

For Fauzia, the hardest part of the day is the 15-minute walk through the narrow alleys to reach her home. She wears a burqa to conceal her uniform, but word of mouth about her job has spread. Neighbors shout, “What kind of job is this?” as she briskly walks by with her head down.

As a solution, some companies spend up to $8,000 a month to transport their female workers in minivans.

A federal law, citing safety concerns, prohibits women from working after 10 p.m. It was extended from a 7 p.m. deadline last year.

Most companies, however, are unwilling to absorb the extra cost of employing women. Even most stores that sell purses, dresses, perfumes and jewelry do not employ women.

Kamil Aziz, who owns Espresso, the city’s most popular coffee chain, said he made it a point not to hire “the other gender” because women could not work the late shift and the turnover rate among women was higher. He said he also did not want to invest in separate changing rooms.

Nearly all of the 100 women interviewed said marriage would end to their careers. But many of them saw benefits along with the hazards.

Most women said that they had never left the house before taking a job. Many spent the first five months missing buses and getting lost. When they first arrived at work, they stuttered nervously in the presence of men.

Now they know better.

“I’ve learned never to take what husbands say at face value,” said Sana Raja Haroon, a saleswoman at Labels, a clothing boutique where men sometimes slide her their business card.

But the employed women are also approached by admiring young women who want to follow their lead.

“Girls envy us,” said Bushra, a KFC worker. “We are considered the men of the house, and that feels good.”

Huma Imtiaz contributed reporting.
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December 27, 2010
Muslim Women Gain Higher Profile in U.S.
By BRIAN KNOWLTON

ATLANTA — Around Sept. 11, 2001, not long after she founded the Islamic Speakers Bureau of Atlanta, Soumaya Khalifa heard from a group whose name sounded like “Bakers Club.” It wanted a presentation.

The address was unfamiliar, but she went anyway. The group turned out to be the Bickerers Club, whose members love to argue. Islam was their topic du jour and their venue was a tavern. Ms. Khalifa laughed, and made the best of it.

Ms. Khalifa, who was born in Egypt and raised in Texas, wears a head scarf but also juggles, comfortably, the demands of American suburbia: crowded schedule, minivan and all.

She is one of a type now found in most sizable U.S. cities: vocal Muslim women wary of the predominantly male leadership of their community and increasingly weary of suspicions of non-Muslims about Islam.

These women have achieved a level of success and visibility unmatched elsewhere. They say they are molded by the freedoms of the United States — indeed, many unabashedly sing its praises — and by the intellectual ferment stirred when American-born and immigrant Muslims mix.

“What we’re seeing now in America is what has been sort of a quiet or informal empowerment of women,” said Shireen Zaman, executive director of the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, a nonprofit research institute founded after the 2001 attacks to provide research on American Muslims. “In many of our home countries, socially or politically it would’ve been harder for Muslim women to take a leadership role. It’s actually quite empowering to be Muslim in America.”

As Najah Bazzy, a American-born nurse and founder of several charities in Michigan, put it: “Yeah I’m Arab, yeah I’m very American, and yeah I’m very Islamic, but you put those things in the blender and I’m no longer just a thing. I’m a new thing.”

It is not always easy. Several of the Muslim women interviewed for this article said they had been the object of abusive letters, e-mails or blog posts.

Yet in their quest to break stereotypes, America’s Muslim women have advantages. They are better educated than counterparts in Western Europe, and also than the average American, according to a Gallup survey in March 2009. In contrast to their sisters in countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, they are just as likely as their menfolk to attend religious services, which equates to greater influence. And Gallup found that Muslim American women, often entrepreneurial, come closer than women of any other faith to earning what their menfolk do.

“Muslims coming to North America are often seeking an egalitarian version of Islam,” said Ebrahim Moosa, an associate professor of Islamic studies at Duke University. “That forces women onto the agenda and makes them much more visible than, say, in Western Europe.”

Besides her speakers’ bureau, which advertises itself as “a bridge between Islam and Americans of other faiths,” Ms. Khalifa heads a consultancy working with students, executives, soldiers and even the F.B.I. to overcome stereotypes. Some people she addresses have never met a Muslim. Some look askance at head scarves.

Ms. Khalifa, who has degrees in chemistry and human resources, began wearing a head scarf in her mid-30s, about 15 years ago. At first, she said, people looked at her “like I was different, Muslim, un-American, stupid.”

But she is quietly persistent. When a small-town newspaper refused to run Ms. Khalifa’s ad listing the hours of a nearby mosque, she organized a successful boycott by local churchmen.

Perhaps the most noticed figure among American Muslim women is Ingrid Mattson. In a bright-red jumper and multicolored head scarf, she stood out among the gray-haired clerics in black who gathered in Washington in September to try and defuse the anger over the planned mosque near the World Trade Center site in New York.

Ms. Mattson, who is 47 and teaches at the Hartford Seminary in Connecticut, became the first woman to head the Islamic Society of North America, one of the largest Muslim associations on the continent.

She was first elected vice president on Sept. 4, 2001, then president in 2006, a position she held until September; those years were so full of sound and fury over all things Muslim that gender took a back seat.

“But what happened on Sept. 11 and after has led American Muslims to be more involved in civic society,” Ms. Mattson said, “and Muslim women were finding that a very rich area for activity.”

“The only area where there’s a limitation is religious leadership — the imam,” she added, predicting that “we will have some communities in the future that have female imams.”

Historically, Muslim women have wielded power from behind the scenes, with notable exceptions like Benazir Bhutto, the late former prime minister of Pakistan. A 2009 survey of the world’s most influential Muslims by Georgetown University and the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center listed just 2 women in the top 50: a Syrian religious leader and Queen Rania, wife of the Jordanian king. Ms. Mattson received an honorable mention.

Muslim women in the United States reflect the country’s diversity: white converts like Ms. Mattson, women of Middle Eastern background like Ms. Khalifa, or Tayyibah Taylor, a convert of Caribbean descent in Atlanta who founded a glossy magazine, Azizah, to celebrate Muslim women of achievement.

The magazine may profile “America’s first all-Muslim, all-female law group” or a hijab-wearing flight attendant, but it also takes up issues like AIDS and spousal abuse. Despite its struggles, Azizah, with a circulation of 45,000, recently celebrated its 10th birthday.

“I didn’t see Islam as taking my freedoms as a woman,” said Ms. Taylor, who is 57 and studied the Koran in Jidda for six years. “It really opened up worlds for me.”

The Muslim population in Atlanta, now estimated at 80,000, has its roots in the 1950s, when a small group of Nation of Islam worshipers, mostly black men, met in a grubby building shared with a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. Waves of immigrants from South Asia, the Middle East or, most recently, Bosnia and Herzegovina, swelled its ranks. The metropolitan area, with 5.5 million people, now has 40 mosques.

But while Muslim women have gained prominence, much of their activity remains outside the mosque.

“There is a missing link in terms of what the Muslim religion teaches about gender equality,” Ms. Khalifa said. “The leadership in our mosques is not reflective of our population — there are hardly any women.”

Imam Plemon T. el-Amin, a retired leader of the Atlanta Masjid of Al-Islam, talked of “a slow move — really an indecisiveness — about getting women fully involved in day-to-day Islamic activities.” That, he said, is changing.

One issue is gender separation at prayer, imposed to reflect Islamic notions of modesty. In some mosques, women are relegated to separate rooms. But, Imam el-Amin said, “I’m seeing mosques do much better at trying to make those separate accommodations equal.”

Ms. Mattson’s election to lead the Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA, was a signal moment.

Her election “broke a barrier and made it much more acceptable for women to take a leading role as leaders of the entire community, not just women,” said Dalia Mogahed, executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies and a former adviser on faith issues in the Obama White House.

Imam el-Amin added, “That’s exactly what ISNA and many of the Muslim organizations needed to see.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/28/world ... nted=print
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Aliya Hirji to present on "Interfaith Dialogue and Education for Women in the Qur'an: A Canadian-Ismaili-Muslim Woman's Perspective"Interfaith Dialogue and Education for Women in the Qur’an:
A Canadian-Ismaili-Muslim Woman’s Perspective

Aliya Hirji will help to break down stereotypes through a journey using the Qur’an, stories in other books, and her own humorous experiences of growing up as a young Ismaili Muslim woman. Aliya Hirji is the Senior Intern at the Iona Pacific Inter-Religious Centre and an alumna of UBC.

March 4, 2011 at Iona Pacific Inter-Religious Centre, Vancouver

http://miketodd.typepad.com/files/theoontapv04.pdf
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Empowered women work to improve the lives of other women and their communities around the world

Jenny Datoo surveys farmers’ associations in Pakistan’s rural Soan Valley to determine the effectiveness of community participation in irrigation projects. Photo: Laya Taheri

A number of Ismaili women are courageously taking the initiative to pave the way for the empowerment of the underprivileged, of which women and girls constitute a substantial portion.

After graduating from university, Jenny Datoo rose to the rank of vice-president at a leading bank. While managing a multi-million dollar portfolio for Fortune 100 clients might be considered by some to be a “dream job”, Datoo found it less than fulfilling. She left the banking world — and the United States — to pursue a master’s degree in Water Science, Policy and Management at Oxford University.

Today, Datoo works in the water management programme at the World Bank, identifying policy enhancements with governments and development institutions in Africa and Asia, and creating sustainable solutions to alleviate water challenges for millions of the world’s poorest communities.

“Gender has never been a limitation in my mind,” says Datoo. “Women can have an incredibly strong influence on decision-making, whether in the household, workplace or voluntary roles.”

Women like Datoo serve as change agents by elevating the status and quality of life of those in need. By applying their own potential to a desire to make a difference, they are providing innovative opportunities that enable others to do the same.
Sheherazade Hirji received the Hope Award from the North York Women’s Shelter. The award recognises individuals who have demonstrated an outstanding commitment and record of contribution to improving the lives of women and girls. Photo: Courtesy of the North York Women’s Shelter
Sheherazade Hirji received the Hope Award from the North York Women’s Shelter. The award recognises individuals who have demonstrated an outstanding commitment and record of contribution to improving the lives of women and girls. Photo: Courtesy of the North York Women’s Shelter

Like Datoo, Sheherazade Hirji made a deliberate career change. A qualified lawyer, she chose a career path in the philanthropic sector that closely mirrored her own values. Hirji is Vice President of Client Services at Tides Canada Foundation, an organisation that supports the philanthropic passions of individuals, foundations, corporations and activists by connecting them to environmental and social justice issues that matter to them.

Hirji recognises that the sacrifices made by women in previous generations have allowed her a chance to succeed — but not all women have that opportunity. She quotes the activist and politician Rosemary Brown who said: “Until all of us have made it, none of us have made it.”

The fact that 1 out of 7 women in Canada live in poverty, 6 out of 10 of the world’s poorest people are still women, and that two-thirds of all children who find themselves outside the school gates in the developing world are girls, provides strong motivation for her work.

In a previous role as an executive director at Royal LePage Shelter Foundation, Hirji focused on the issue of violence against women and supported shelters serving women and children fleeing violence across Canada. In 2008, she received the Hope Award from the North York Women’s Shelter in recognition of her outstanding commitment and record of contribution to improving the lives of women and girls. As a board member of the Canadian Women’s Foundation and a member of the National Committee of Aga Khan Foundation Canada, Hirji is a powerful voice for women and girls, as well as issues of gender in development.
Shaherose Charania (left) works with two entrepreneurs on an idea at Women 2.0 Labs, a pre-incubator for future technology founders. Photo: Angie Chang
Shaherose Charania (left) works with two entrepreneurs on an idea at Women 2.0 Labs, a pre-incubator for future technology founders. Photo: Angie Chang

When asked what constitutes a woman of substance, Hirji states that it is “someone who is grounded in her values and has a sense of perspective as to what really matters in life.”

Shaherose Charania fits that definition well. Although she grew up in Canada, frequent family trips to Pakistan opened her eyes to economic inequality around the world. She is the co-founder and CEO of Women 2.0, an organisation devoted to women’s empowerment.

“I realised how important technology was in connecting people and changing the status quo of a country, a city and an individual’s mind,” says Charania, who is based in San Francisco.

While working in Silicon Valley, Charania noted an obvious gender imbalance among the technology start-up community. She discovered that although more than half of all small businesses are run by women, only 5 per cent of women are founders of high tech enterprises. This meant that women were being left behind in innovation, and missing out on the opportunity to make a difference in the world of technology. Charania started Women 2.0 to help fix this disparity.
Dr Sunera Thobani is an Associate Professor of Women’s Studies at the University of British Colombia. Photo: Fatima Jaffer
Dr Sunera Thobani is an Associate Professor of Women’s Studies at the University of British Colombia. Photo: Fatima Jaffer

“Our goal is to increase the size of the entrepreneurship funnel by introducing more female founders into the early stage pipeline,” she says. A visionary at heart, Charania is reaching tens of thousands of women and has personally seen 300 projects get off the ground.

Datoo, Hirji and Charania are trail-blazing women, but Dr Sunera Thobani wonders how many recognise the significance of what they and other women like them have accomplished. The Associate Professor of Women’s Studies at the University of British Colombia, laments that today’s women generally know very little of their gender’s history.

“One of my major goals is to reach young women and to teach them about women's activism, historically,” says Dr Thobani. For her, women’s empowerment is about “creating real material options for women to end poverty and violence in their lives.” As a Muslim woman and scholar, Dr. Thobani is at the forefront of educating people about Islam and its values. She challenges women to achieve more and sets the record straight on the stereotypes surrounding Muslim women.

“It is very important for young women to think critically, to feel the power that women have and to join forces with those who want a world based on justice.”

http://www.theismaili.org/cms/1155/Empo ... -the-world
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Watch Almas Jiwani, President of UN Women Canada, on CBC’s Mansbridge One on One

http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/TV_Shows ... 1841160592
kmaherali
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Almas Jiwani, President of UN Women Canada, Will Deliver Keynote Address at the 2011 Health and Human Rights Conference (HHR)
National Committee of UN Women - Canada


ORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - March 18, 2011) - Almas Jiwani, President of the National Committee for the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women – Canada) will deliver keynote address at the 2011 Health and Human Rights Conference tomorrow at the University of Toronto – St George Campus.

The Health and Human Rights Conference is one of the largest events held by the University of Toronto's International Health (UTHIP) Program with an attendance of 700 individuals last year. The conference targets an audience of university students and faculty members from diverse disciplines, as well as leaders in global health. This year's conference will attract expert advice on women's health issues from the realms of political science, international development, environment, health, economics and engineering. The conference will strive to equip the audience with the resources and knowledge to initiate positive change around the world.

Co-Chair of the 2011 Health and Human Rights Conference, Kushbu Loyal states: "We are excited and honored that Ms. Jiwani accepted our invitation to deliver keynote address at the Health and Human Rights Conference. Her great work epitomizes the significance of gender equality and women's health. Victoria Wong, Co-Chair, further added: "Ms. Jiwani has stated several times that gender equality is the most prevalent issue for women all around the world, even in Canada. We couldn't think of anyone better to continue educating and raising awareness about these issues at this year's conference, which focuses on the importance of maternal and women's health."

According to UN Women, the issue of maternal health is one of the major pre-requisites in accomplishing the UN's Millennium Development Goals. The target to reduce the maternal mortality ratio is the area of least progress of all the Millennium Development Goals.

Reflecting on the issue of maternal health, Ms. Jiwani states: "Equitable health care for women is one of the major pre-requisites for accomplishing the UN's Millennium Development Goals. Broadening participation at conferences, such as the Health and Human Rights Conference, where people will be engaged in discussing the core issues such as violence against women, women's reproductive rights and maternal health, will also have a significant impact on ensuring availability of proper healthcare to elevate the status of women in underprivileged situations such as war, disaster or economic crises."

Ms. Jiwani will deliver the opening remarks at the conference to evaluate the maternal health challenges facing women around the world accompanied. She will also take this opportunity to educate the audience about the United Nations' unique approach to underlying local and international perspectives pertaining to women's health.

About UN Women Canada

The National Committee for UN Women Canada raises UN Women's profile and promotes its work in Canada; raises funds for UN Women projects; creates awareness within the Canadian governments for increased funding for UN Women projects; and encourages non-governmental organizations to promote and support UN Women initiatives.

About University of Toronto International Health Program

The University of Toronto International Health Program (UTIHP) is a student-run non-profit organization who accepts and promotes the World Health Organization's definition of health as: "The ability to identify and to realize aspirations, to satisfy needs, and to change or cope with the environment. Health is therefore a resource for life, not the object of living. Health is a positive concept emphasizing social and personal resources as well as physical capacities." (WHO, 1986)

http://www.nationalpost.com/Almas+Jiwan ... story.html
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Post by shiraz.virani »

SRK's discovery Zoa Morani turns 22

Shah Rukh Khan discovery Zoa Morani turns 22 today. She debuts in Roshan Abbas' maiden directorial venture Always Kabhi Kabhi later this year.

Zoa won't have a big bash this year. She says, "I just want to chill with my family and go out to dinner with them."

Morani, an Ismaili (Aga Khani) by birth, adds, "I will definitely pray at the Jamatkhana (community centre)."

What makes this b'day extra special is that her boyfriend Shamik Raja will be in town. "He surprised me by flying down from London. He had told me he wasn't going to be able to make it," she gushes.

She met her guy, an Indo-Canadian, two years ago on her dad's birthday. A source informs us that Shamik manages a hedge fund and has a house next to Shah Rukh's in Dubai.

On screen, the newbie would love to romance Hrithik Roshan. "He is so hot," she raves.

http://www.mid-day.com/entertainment/20 ... -Kabhi.htm
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Post by kmaherali »

April 22, 2011 17:05 ET
Almas Jiwani, President of the National Committee for UN Women-Canada Will Address the Pakistani Community at the 2011 Pakistan Day Celebrations Hosted by MQM-Canada

BRAMPTON, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - April 22, 2011) - Ms. Almas Jiwani, President of the National Committee for UN Women - Canada will address an audience of over 400 individuals at the 2011 Pakistan Day festivities organized under the auspices of the MQM (Muttahida Qaumi Movement) and its annual community event.

This high profile event will feature remarks and keynote addresses by local and foreign dignitaries followed by an exclusive performance by the renowned Pakistani singer Naeem Abbas Rufi. The theme of the event is surrounding the legacy of the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, MQM leader Altaf Hussain and his vision of equality and justice for the people of Pakistan and the constitution of Pakistan that was realized on March 23rd 1956.

Commenting on the Pakistan Day celebration, Ms Almas Jiwani states:

"Investment in women and girls is the key to Pakistan's future growth and productivity. Today we celebrate the Pakistan Resolution Day as a pinnacle moment in the creation of the country. We reflect, we remember, and we look ahead. Today, let us make a personal commitment to ensuring that gender equality becomes a lived reality in Pakistan and worldwide. Let us celebrate Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah's vision for creating an independent nation. Like the founders of the country, we too must be visionaries and we must work together to put Pakistan on the trajectory to become a strong, united, and peaceful country. There is only one way to accomplish this goal, and it rests in the investment in the country's greatest untapped resource – women. "

Reflecting on the Pakistan Day celebrations, MQM Canada Central Organizer Mr. Iqbal Qamar states:

"MQM Canada and its leadership under Altaf Hussain, explicitly believes that empowerment of society occurs through empowerment of the underprivileged middle and lower classes. Thus, in order to achieve the solution to most of Pakistan's problems, our approach emphasizes Realism and Practicalism. Women's empowerment is an important aspect of MQM's larger agenda. We fully believe that through cooperation with civil society partners like UN Women – Canada, we will revitalize the global and local dialogue on gender equality and eradication of societal injustices.

On this Pakistan Day, we hope to bring new energy, draw on multiple talents, and bring together men and women from around the world for this endeavor to make gender equality and societal empowerment a "lived reality" and accelerate Pakistan's economic, political and social progress."

The 2011 Pakistan Day event will be organized at Milan Banquet Hall and all the funds raised from tickets will be donated to alleviate the suffering and assist the flood victims of Pakistan.

About UN Women-Canada

The National Committee for UN Women - Canada works to address the challenges of promoting gender equality globally. UN Women is a dynamic and strong champion for women and girls, providing them with a powerful voice at the global, regional, and local levels. The main roles of UN Women – Canada is to raise UN Women's profile and promotes its work in Canada; raise funds for UN Women projects; creates awareness within the Canadian government for increased contribution for UN Women projects; and encouragement of non-governmental organizations, civil society, political and corporate leaders to promote and support UN Women initiatives.

For an interview with Ms. Almas Jiwani or media information on the National Committee for UN Women Canada, please contact:

Mr. Ovais Shah

communications@unwomencanada.org

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release ... 505677.htm
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Post by kmaherali »

In A Land Of Few Rights, Saudi Women Fight To Vote

by Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/04/135993676 ... ht-to-vote

May 4, 2011

It was pretty sobering to hear a group of Saudi women I met recently tell me they feel they have the least freedom or fewest rights of any women in the world.

They have no right to vote in the rare, countrywide elections Saudi officials hold or to drive on the kingdom's roads. They have little say in matters of marriage and divorce. They can't travel unless their male guardian — who could even be their child — gives them a letter granting them permission to do so.

Never mind the mandatory black robe and veil that they must put on whenever they leave the house.

So when the government recently decided to renege on a promise to grant them the vote in municipal elections this fall, the women told me they'd had enough.

They were among dozens of women across the country who decided to go to registration centers and demand voting cards. The ones I interviewed hatched their plan on Twitter.

There were 11 of them. They agreed to have me along as long as I blended in with the group. Even though I'm here on a journalist visa issued by the Saudi government, the women feared my presence would lead to their being dismissed by officials as immoral Saudis who were influenced by the West.

Nor did the women want to raise the ire of the religious police should they arrive on the scene.

So I agreed to become as invisible as they feel. I placed my tape recorder in an outside pocket of my purse and left it running. I put on an opaque black veil called a niqab that covers everything but my eyes. (I already wear the black robe, or abaya, which is required of female visitors to Saudi Arabia).

Even though I'm here on a journalist visa issued by the Saudi government, the women feared my presence would lead to their being dismissed by officials as immoral Saudis who were influenced by the West. ... So I agreed to become as invisible as they feel.

I followed the sea of black-clad women into a voting center inside a boys' elementary school in the capital, Riyadh.

The sleepy male officials were startled by our arrival. Not a single man was there to sign up for elections that have otherwise generated little interest in Saudi Arabia. But here was a group of women defying the government's decision to limit the vote to men only.

I was able to make out bits and pieces of the argument that ensued. The women pleaded: We have rights as Saudi citizens. All we are asking is to register. Think of your mothers, wives, sisters and daughters. One of the women used the camera on her phone to record part of the exchange.

But the men weren't moved. It's illegal, it's immoral, it's out of our hands, were the arguments they used. The head of the center spoke to the women condescendingly and finally left, making a call to what the women feared might be the religious police.

That prompted a couple of the women to leave in a hurry. But the other nine stood their ground, turning their attention to a second voting official who turned out to be the school principal.

The women later told me he was more understanding. But in the end, he wouldn't allow them to sign up or give them voter cards.

So far, Saudi journalists report only two women in Saudi Arabia were allowed to register, and that was in the city of Khobar. When other women went to that same center the following day, they were turned away.
Related NPR Stories
Saudi Women Reunite To Remember Driving Protest Dec. 16, 2008

The women I was with agreed to meet with me at a cafe a short drive away. They were all smiles.

Most said they would try again. "We just have to find someone who will let us do it — someone who, you know, sees his daughter in us or his wife, or believes in it," said 23-year-old Sara, a social media worker. (She, like many of the women in this report, asked their last names not be used to protect their families.)

Mohammad Fahad al-Qahtani, president of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association, hopes the women will keep trying to claim the vote.

"They work for it, so I think they have the right to participate. But I really don't understand the government, the mentality of the government," he said. "I think the reason is that government is using it as quid pro quo toward extremists."

The people Qahtani is referring to are the hard-line Islamic fundamentalists in the kingdom, who, among other things, run the much feared religious police here and oppose giving women more rights.

What he's referring to is a widespread, but quietly held belief that King Abdullah is making concessions to these fundamentalists, who in turn keep Saudi citizens in check at a time when political dissent in the kingdom is growing.

The Saudi women in this story are not the first to make a public statement against discrimination in their country. In late 1990, a group of professors and other professionals defied the ban against females driving.

The drivers were arrested and later shunned by many of their students, friends and relatives. Leaflets with their names that described them as whores and their husbands as pimps circulated around the capital. They suffered reprisals at work and had their passports confiscated by the government.

At the coffee shop, many of the would-be voters say they thought of those women as they hatched their plan.

"They were braver and it gives a push on some level, but it's also disappointing on another because look at them now — what did they do? They changed nothing," said Rasha Al-Duwisi, who is 30 and a stay-at-home mother.

Still, Duwisi and the rest of these women say they are determined to press on.
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May 23, 2011
Saudis Arrest Woman Leading Right-to-Drive Campaign
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — The government of Saudi Arabia moved swiftly to extinguish a budding protest movement of women claiming the right to drive, a campaign inspired by uprisings across the Arab world demanding new freedoms but at risk Monday of foundering.

Manal al-Sharif, 32, one of the campaign organizers, was detained Sunday in the eastern city of Dammam for up to five days on charges of disturbing public order and inciting public opinion by twice driving in a bid to press her cause, said her lawyer, Adnan al-Saleh.

Ms. Sharif was arrested after two much-publicized drives last week to highlight the Facebook and Twitter campaigns she helped organize to encourage women across Saudi Arabia to participate in a collective protest scheduled for June 17.

The campaigns, which had attracted thousands of supporters — more than 12,000 on the Facebook page — have been blocked in the kingdom. Ms. Sharif’s arrest was very likely intended to give others pause before participating in the protests in a country where a woman’s public reputation, including her ability to marry, can be badly damaged by an arrest.

More.....

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/24/world ... &emc=tha22

*******

If Muslim women could ride on camels 14 centuries ago, why shouldn't they drive cars today?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/13/opini ... emc=tha212
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The new Muslim marriage contract should empower women

Islam emphasises love, kindness and mercy between spouses. Hopefully this contract will make that more of a reality for women

Tehmina Kazi
guardian.co.uk, Friday 8 July 2011 14.56 BST
Article history

It is no surprise that household chores are the bane of many marriages, and the competing demands of modern life have compounded this situation for women in particular. Who, then, wouldn't jump at the chance to sign a marriage contract that potentially exempts women from wiping up vomit and scraping hair out of the plughole? Yet most people gasp with shock when I explain to them that Muslim women are able to stipulate such conditions in their marriage contracts – and that Islamic law sanctions this choice. Far greater coverage is afforded to the issue of forced marriages (which are strongly opposed by Islam and also take place in other minority communities) as well as the oppressive treatment – both real and perceived – of Muslim women who are in consensual marriages. Such stories fly in the face of Islamic teachings, which emphasise love, kindness and mercy between spouses.

Last Friday, I attended the relaunch of an initiative that aims to bridge the lacuna between the rights Muslim women have in theory, and the deprivation of these rights that some of them experience in practice. The new Muslim marriage contract, which was originally launched in 2008 after four years of extensive research and consultation, revives Islamic opinions that are more consonant with the spirit of egalitarianism. It was drafted by Muslim Institute trustees Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui and Mufti Barkatullah, as well as Muslim Women's Network chair Cassandra Balchin, and has also acquired a new website.

The main reforms include removing the requirement for a wali (marriage guardian) for the bride, who, as an adult, can make up her own mind about whom to marry; enabling the wife to initiate divorce and retain all her financial rights agreed in the marriage contract; and encouraging mosques to register to perform marriages (so that they are automatically recognised in British law without a separate civil ceremony). As Siddiqui explained at Friday's event, he was aware of only a handful of mosques who have registered their premises so far.

Of course, no amount of paperwork will provide a miracle cure for any arrangement that is entered into with less than noble intentions. However, the Muslim marriage contract ensures a higher standard of redress for women caught up in these situations. It also provides an excellent negotiating tool for thorny issues that can throw even the most idealistic couples, such as financial management, where to live, and contact with extended family on both sides (as Heidi Withers discovered when her prospective stepmother-in-law unfairly chastised her for being "uncouth" in an email that recently went viral).

While the Muslim marriage contract has received support from community organisations, politicians, family lawyers, academics and theologians, some level of censure was expected from certain groups and individuals. At Friday's seminar, Siddiqui described how some marital interactions had been coloured by "cultural practices masquerading as religious duties". He cited the case of a man with multiple wives whose offspring felt they were treated unjustly compared to their half-brothers and -sisters. The thread running through many of these cases is the dominant party's desire to maximise their rights at any cost, while failing to uphold – or even consider – the responsibilities that accompany these rights. They forget that the main reason polygamy was allowed in the first place – according to many scholars – was to provide security and respectability to war widows, orphans, and divorced and destitute women. Yet in these supposedly enlightened times, many divorced Muslim women struggle to find suitable partners for remarriage (whether the men in question are involved in polygamous arrangements or not).

It is inevitable that such people would attempt to discredit any initiative that threatens the status quo. In the past, they may well have succeeded in silencing these voices, but they are taking on a larger network of determined activists – from Casablanca to Coventry – who will not rest until women's empowerment is achieved.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... ract-women
Last edited by kmaherali on Tue Oct 11, 2011 10:35 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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September 25, 2011
Saudi Monarch Grants Women Right to Vote
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia on Sunday granted women the right to vote and run in future municipal elections, the biggest change in a decade for women in a puritanical kingdom that practices strict separation of the sexes, including banning women from driving.

Saudi women, who are legally subject to male chaperones for almost any public activity, hailed the royal decree as an important, if limited, step toward making them equal to their male counterparts. They said the uprisings sweeping the Arab world for the past nine months — along with sustained domestic pressure for women’s rights and a more representative form of government — prompted the change.

“There is the element of the Arab Spring, there is the element of the strength of Saudi social media, and there is the element of Saudi women themselves, who are not silent,” said Hatoon al-Fassi, a history professor and one of the women who organized a campaign demanding the right to vote this spring. “Plus, the fact that the issue of women has turned Saudi Arabia into an international joke is another thing that brought the decision now.”

Although political activists celebrated the change, they also cautioned how deep it would go and how fast, given that the king referred to the next election cycle, which would not be until 2015. Some women wondered aloud how they would be able to campaign for office when they were not even allowed to drive. And there is a long history of royal decrees stalling, as weak enactment collides with the bulwark of traditions ordained by the Wahhabi sect of Islam and its fierce resistance to change.

In his announcement, the king said that women would also be appointed to the Majlis Al-Shura, a consultative council that advises the monarchy on matters of public policy. But it is a toothless body that avoids matters of royal prerogative, like where the nation’s oil revenue goes.

“We refuse to marginalize the role of women in Saudi society,” the king said in an address to the Shura, noting during the five minutes he spent on the subject that senior religious scholars had endorsed the change.

Even under the new law, it was unclear how many women would take part in elections. In many aspects of life, men — whether fathers, husbands or brothers — prevent women from participating in legal activities. Public education for women took years to gain acceptance after it was introduced in 1960.

King Abdullah, the 87-year-old monarch who has a reputation for pushing reforms opposed by some of his half-brothers among the senior princes, said the monarchy was simply following Islamic guidelines, and that those who shunned such practices were “arrogant.”

Some analysts described the king’s choice as the path of least resistance. Many Saudis have been loudly demanding that all 150 members of the Shura be elected, not appointed. By suddenly putting women in the mix, activists feared, the government might use the excuse of integration to delay introducing a nationally elected council.

Political participation for women is also a less contentious issue than granting them the right to drive, an idea fiercely opposed by some of the most powerful clerics and princes. Even as the king made the political announcement, activists said that one prominent opponent of the ban, Najla al-Hariri, was being questioned Sunday for continuing her stealth campaign of driving.

Mrs. Hariri has been vociferous in demanding the right as a single mother who cannot afford one of the ubiquitous foreign chauffeurs to ferry her children to school. In recent weeks, a woman even drove down King Fahd Expressway, the main thoroughfare through downtown Riyadh, activists said.

Municipal elections in the kingdom are scheduled for Thursday, but the campaign is almost over and the king said that women would be able to nominate themselves and vote “as of the next session.” Introduced in 2005, the municipal councils have proved disappointing for those who had hoped they would create more political change.

Saudi Arabia remains an absolute monarchy. Fouad al-Farhan, once jailed briefly for his blog critical of the monarchy, led a slate of young Saudis from the cosmopolitan commercial capital of Jidda, determined to run in this year’s municipal elections to use whatever democratic openings they might afford for change. When the final list of candidates was posted weeks ago, his name had been unceremoniously removed — without anyone from the Jidda governorate run by Prince Khalid al-Faisal calling him to explain, Mr. Farhan said.

Despite the snail’s pace of change, women on Sunday were optimistic that the right to vote and run would give them leverage to change the measures, big and small, that hem them in.

“It is a good sign, and we have to take advantage of it,” said Maha al-Qahtani, one of the women who defied the ban on driving this year, said of the king’s announcement. “But we still need more rights.”

Women require the permission of a male sponsor, or “mahram,” to travel or undertake much of the commercial activity needed to run a business. They inhabit separate and often inferior spaces in restaurants, banks and health clubs, when they are allowed in at all.

Women were granted the right to their own national identification cards in 2001, the last major step that many hoped would lead to greater public freedom, but it failed to materialize. The Saudi judiciary, a conservative bastion, has yet to allow female lawyers, a new phenomenon, to argue in court. And a royal decree issued earlier this year that women should be allowed to work in public to sell lingerie has not been enacted — leaving Saudi women to buy their bras from male clerks, who mostly hail from South Asia.

Social media, heavily used in Saudi Arabia to start with, lit up with the announcement, with supporters endorsing it as “a great leap forward,” as one Twitter post put it. Some conservatives inveighed against it.

“Muslim scholars believe it is un-Islamic to allow women to participate in the Shura council,” wrote Mohammad al-Habdan, one such scholar.

In March, King Abdullah announced $130 billion in public spending over the next decade on measures like affordable housing, hoping for social peace after the first governments in the region were toppled. But uprisings have continued to challenge Arab governments.

Around the Persian Gulf, many citizens of the wealthy monarchies jealously track the rights and largess granted in neighboring states. On Saturday, 19 men and one woman were elected to a legislative body in the United Arab Emirates. Last summer, Qatar granted a notable 60 percent pay raise to all state employees.

Such regional and domestic pressures weighed on the Saudi monarchy to make some type of gesture. The one King Abdullah chose was less sweeping than many political activists had wanted, but one they hoped was a sign of more to come.

“It is not something that will change the life of most women,” said Fawaziah Bakr, an education professor in Riyadh, noting that she had just held a monthly dinner for professional women who were buzzing with excitement about the change.

“We are now looking for even more,” Mrs. Bakr said. “The Arab spring means that things are changing, that the political power has to listen to the people. The spring gave us a clear voice.”

Nada Bakri contributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/26/world ... s&emc=tha2

*****

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/opini ... emc=tha211

September 26, 2011
Saudi Arabia and Its Women

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia deserves credit for his long overdue decision to give women the right to vote, to run in municipal elections and to be appointed as full voting members of the Majlis Al-Shura, a government advisory group. It is a first step toward moving his country into the modern world but not nearly enough.

The list of fundamental rights still denied to Saudi women is long and shameful. Men — their fathers or husbands — control whether they can travel, work, receive health care, attend school or start a business. Women are banned from driving.

Even after Sunday’s announcement, women will not be able to vote and run for municipal elections until 2015 — even though there is an election scheduled for Thursday — and they will need the approval of a male family member to exercise either right.

The king is undoubtedly trying to head off a push for more forceful changes inspired by pro-democracy movements in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. In March, when Saudi activists called for protests, he responded by barring demonstrations and announcing nearly $130 billion in public spending. But the king also considers himself a reformer. To really prove that, he is going to have to stop pandering to ultraconservative members of the royal family and extremist Wahhabi clerics who are determined to keep Saudi women in shackles.

Laws must be changed to provide greater protections for women who are raped or suffer domestic abuse. The archaic ban on driving by women also must be lifted. In June, some Saudi women held a high-profile right-to-drive campaign that resulted in dozens of arrests. Those cases should be dropped.

One area where Saudi women are making strides is in education. But while they are 58 percent of the college graduates, they are only 14 percent of the work force. What possible future can Saudi Arabia have when half the population is not allowed to participate fully in the economy or civic life?

*****

*****
Asani on women's rights in Saudi Arabia

"Saudi Arabia lags way behind most Muslim countries in terms of affording rights to women," he said. "There is nothing theological about this, because women can vote in more than 50 other countries."

Asani said the country moves fast socially — with skyscrapers and technology — it remains reluctant to match that pace culturally.

The change wouldn't take effect immediately, he said, because of the social and patriarchal ties that are woven into the country's history.

"The whole thing comes out to look like it's about religion," he said. "[But] religion is tied to social, political, and cultural norms.

http://www.dailyiowan.com/2011/10/11/Metro/25359.html
Last edited by kmaherali on Tue Oct 11, 2011 10:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by kmaherali »

There is a related video linked at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/08/world ... &emc=tha22

October 7, 2011
Among 3 Women Awarded Nobel Peace Prize, a Nod to the Arab Spring
By LAURA KASINOF and ROBERT F. WORTH

SANA, Yemen — She is only 32 years old, an outspoken human rights activist and mother of three who was unknown outside her own country until she began leading anti-government protests this year.

Yet when Tawakkol Karman was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, she became a standard-bearer for the Arab Spring and for the role of women across the Middle East. And as a liberal Islamist who stopped wearing the full facial veil three years ago, she appears to represent something else, too: the hope in the West that Islamic movements might someday play a positive role in rebuilding Arab societies.

“Giving it to a woman and an Islamist? That means a sort of re-evaluation,” said Nadia Mostafa, a professor of international relations at Cairo University. “It means Islam is not against peace, it’s not against women, and Islamists can be women activists, and they can fight for human rights, freedom and democracy.”

Ms. Karman was one of three women awarded the prize on Friday, alongside President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia and the Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee. They were the first women honored by the committee since 2004, and the Nobel citation made clear that female empowerment was the primary message.

“We cannot achieve democracy and lasting peace in the world unless women obtain the same opportunities as men to influence developments at all levels of society,” it read.

Ms. Karman seemed stunned by the award as she sat surrounded by admirers in the worn blue tent where she has lived in a sprawling protest camp for nine months. Many expected the award to go to one of the protest leaders in Egypt or Tunisia, where the revolts have succeeded in toppling authoritarian leaders. Yemen’s rebellion is far from over, and many fear that it could still devolve into civil war. And for all her activism, Ms. Karman remains a controversial figure here as a leading member of the nation’s largest Islamist party, Islah.

For these reasons and others, her selection by the Oslo-based Nobel committee seemed more an expression of hope for the future — what some commentators called wishful thinking — than a recognition of past achievements, much like the Nobel Peace Prize granted to President Obama in 2009. In both cases, the committee appeared intent on recognizing potential and hoping that its imprimatur might help drive events in its desired direction.

“It sounds churlish to say this, but it seems premature because she’s quite young and has been active for only a few years,” said Nesrine Malik, who writes on Arab and Middle Eastern Affairs in London, mainly for The Guardian. “There’s an element of, ‘We’re being hopeful,’ and it’s almost irrelevant what’s been achieved.”

Yet Ms. Karman’s selection was also widely seen in the Middle East as an endorsement of the revolts that broke out across the Arab world early this year, where popular uprisings have challenged entrenched leaders and empowered the disenfranchised. Ms. Karman made clear that she saw the prize that way.

“This is a victory for Arabs around the world,” she said on Friday afternoon, her brown eyes wide, a red flowered veil around her head. “And it will end the dictatorship of Ali Abdullah Saleh,” Yemen’s longtime president.

The award offered a brief respite for a people, and a nation, that are bogged down in a protracted standoff that Ms. Karman helped to start. Mr. Saleh refuses to leave power. Protesters refuse to leave the streets. And lethal gun battles often break out between forces loyal to the president, and defectors who have joined the opposition. Supporters gathered around Ms. Karman’s tent excitedly, chanting “God is great” and “This is the biggest prize in the world!” Even the government, which has in the past cast Ms. Karman as a villain, offered congratulations.

Although Ms. Karman is well known here for her bravery and early leading role in the protests — she acquired the nickname “Mother of the Revolution” — many of the more independent protesters resent the dominating influence of Yemen’s main Islamist party, known as Islah, and Ms. Karman’s role in it. She was seen by some as domineering and selfish, and her influence in the protests has waned in recent months.

Yet Ms. Karman’s Islamist politics are central to her role here. In a sense, she stands as an exemplar of the complexity of Islamic political movements, which are often misperceived in the West as monolithic and menacing, and are likely to play a powerful role in any governments that emerge from the Arab revolutions of 2011. Islamist parties are expected to do well in Tunisia and Egypt, which plan to hold parliamentary elections soon.

Ms. Karman has repeatedly clashed with the leaders of Islah. But instead of leaving the party, as many others have, she has tried to reshape it in a more open and tolerant direction. She has openly challenged hard-liners such as Abdel Majid al-Zindani, a cleric and party leader who has been labeled a terrorist by the United States Treasury Department.

Three years ago she stopped wearing the full facial veil, shocking many of her colleagues. Her father and uncle are prominent figures in Islah, and she has used that lineage to help push her reformist agenda.

Women like Ms. Karman have played roles across the Arab world in the protests of 2011, raising hopes that their contributions would translate into broader social and political rights. But that too, remains an aspiration, and women appear to have lost their voices in the new orders taking shape in Egypt and elsewhere.

Even in person, Ms. Karman flouts stereotypes: she speaks in a strident, passionate voice, hands jabbing the air as she defends her views on the Yemeni revolution (do not try calling it a mere rebellion). She seems as comfortable talking politics with men as she is with women, and — unlike many opposition figures — she has long been willing to criticize the Yemeni president directly.

Her face has become a common sight on television screens and newspapers in recent months, despite frequent attempts by the government and its allies to smear her as a traitor and an ideologue. She has received countless death threats, and for months she has not dared to visit her own home except in disguise. But after the award was announced, even the government joined in the general celebration. A Web site that belongs to Yemen’s ruling party published a statement congratulating Ms. Karman.

Sitting in her tent on Friday night after a day of manic celebration, Ms. Karman reminisced about her path to politics. She founded an advocacy group in 2005 called Women Journalists Without Chains. In 2007, she began staging sit-ins in front of Yemen’s Parliament and cabinet buildings, demanding greater press freedoms and more humane treatment for marginalized groups. She only gained national recognition when she took to the streets in January with a few dozen other young people to call for Mr. Saleh’s resignation. She was arrested, and her detention drew large crowds onto the streets for the first time, in what is now seen as the start of the Yemeni uprising.

“Martin Luther King has inspired me the most because he sought change peacefully,” Ms. Karman said. “Also Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, but really to the largest extent it’s Martin Luther King. We try for change using his same methods.”

Later in the evening, Ms. Karman finally took a break to chat by phone with her mother, who had called to congratulate her on the prize. She sat on the thin mattress where she has slept for months, next to her only piece of furniture, a flimsy wooden table with a TV on it. Her own children were absent: they are living with their grandparents, far from the tumult and danger of the tent city.

But Ms. Karman did have one companion. A small boy, whose father was killed by a sniper’s bullet during the protests, clung to her side.

Laura Kasinof reported from Sana, Yemen, and Robert F. Worth from Washington. Anthony Shadid contributed reporting from Istanbul and Sarah Lyall from London.
kmaherali
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Post by kmaherali »

Women and Islam (Women and Religion in the World) [Hardcover]
Zayn R. Kassam (Editor)

Editorial Reviews
Book Description

In Iran, Islamist women support the right of women to work outside the home, while in Malaysia, Sisters in Islam fights to bring gender justice to Islamic law. Although the subject of women in Islam can provoke horror, fascination, pity, and at times, vitriolic reactions, Muslim women around the globe are fighting for a place in today's world.
Product Description

The expert essays in Women and Islam are designed to stimulate discussion and help readers achieve a more sober understanding of the lives of Muslim women around the world. They explore the issues Muslim women face as they fight for gender justice and meet the challenges of living in a globalized, post-9/11 world—whether in Iran or France, Ethiopia, or the United States.

Each chapter examines a different part of the globe, exploring issues arising from cultural and religious codes, as well as from internal and global politics, economics, education, and the law. Readers will glimpse the many and diverse ways in which Muslim women are actively involved in addressing the conditions embedded in their discrete environments and taking up the opportunities afforded to them, adopting strategies ranging from the political to the legal, from the theatrical to the religious.

http://www.amazon.com/Women-Islam-Relig ... 992&sr=8-1

http://books.google.ca/books?id=oFxLOJZ ... &q&f=false

*****

2011 Peter Craigie Memorial Lecture - Muslim Women and the Jihad for Gender Justice

http://rels.ucalgary.ca/2011_Peter_Crai ... al_Lecture

Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Zayn Kassam, Professor of Religious Studies at Pomona College and Claremont Graduate University in California, examines how Muslim women are framed in western discourse and explores how Muslim thinkers historically situated in patriarchal contexts interpreted the Qur’an’s verses dealing with women and the family for legal and social purposes. She explores some of the challenges facing Muslim women as they struggle for gender justice and considers how Muslim gender activists have turned their attention to reading the Qur’an from a fresh perspective to ascertain whether it can be read as a women-friendly document.

Dr. Zayn Kassam holds her Ph.D. from McGill University and has been honoured with two awards for Distinguished Teaching. The author of a reference work on Islam as well as an edited volume on Women and Islam, she has lectured on Islam and gender in North America and in the United Kingdom, and has published articles dealing with gender, ethics, pedagogy and philosophy. Professor Kassam is currently working on a feminist theology in Islam.

Click here to download the lecture.
Last edited by kmaherali on Sun Oct 23, 2011 8:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
agakhani
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Location: TEXAS. U.S.A.

Muslim women should have sex with 72 men!!??

Post by agakhani »

The controversial Bangladeshi writer, Taslima Nasreen, once again triggered the fresh controversy according Through her twitter account, Taslima said that a Muslim Woman should have sex with 72 men. "Muslim women deserve to have sex with 72 virgin men on the earth as they won't get these things in heaven."

What is your comments on Taslima's above controversial claim? Islam never permit this actually in Islam it's called "zina" if you make sex without your husband or wife and without marriage.
kmaherali
Posts: 25107
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Post by kmaherali »

October 26, 2011
Can Islamism and Feminism Mix?
By MONICA MARKS

Islamists triumphed in Tunisia's election, and women stand to gain the most.

Oxford, England

TINY Tunisia, where a fruit seller’s suicide sparked the Arab Spring, held its first free elections on Sunday. Over 90 percent of registered voters turned out, far exceeding expectations. Lines of beaming blue-fingered voters poured out of polling places, proudly posting photos of their freshly inked hands on Facebook.

Yet despite Tunisia’s election day success story, many observers fear that democracy could unleash an Islamist tidal wave. The Islamist party Ennahda, banned as a terrorist group under the dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, won approximately 40 percent of votes — a resounding plurality.

A small but increasingly vocal minority of secular Tunisians are predicting that an Islamist-dominated national assembly will reverse key pieces of civil rights legislation, including those recognizing the right to abortion and prohibiting polygamy.

Tunisia’s secular feminists, many of whom are urban admirers of French-style secularism, see Ennahda women as unwitting agents of their own domination. Although Ennahda openly supports Tunisia’s 1956 Code of Personal Status — arguably the most progressive piece of women’s rights legislation in the Arab world — its critics accuse the party as a whole of purveying a “double discourse,” adopting a soft, tolerant line when speaking to francophone secularists but preaching a rabidly conservative message when addressing its rural base.

Rather than developing strong platforms of their own, secular opposition parties like Ettajdid have focused their campaign efforts almost exclusively on fear mongering, raising the specter of an Iranian-style Islamist takeover and the imposition of Shariah, the legal code of Islam. Daniel Pipes and other Western commentators have joined the fray, urging Washington to stand against the “blight” of Ennahda and labeling Islamism “the civilized world’s greatest enemy.”

But it is far too early to sound such alarms. As a result of their active participation in party politics, Ennahda women actually stand to gain more from Sunday’s election than any other group.

In May, Tunisia passed an extremely progressive parity law, resembling France’s, which required all political parties to make women at least half of their candidates. As a long-repressed party, Ennahda enjoyed more credibility than other groups. It also had a greater number of female candidates to run than any other party, and strongly supported the parity law as a result.

Many Tunisian women developed a political consciousness in reaction to Mr. Ben Ali’s severe oppression of Ennahda in the 1990s. While their husbands, brothers and sons were in jail — often for reasons as simple as attending dawn prayers — these women discovered that they had a personal stake in politics and the strength to stand alone as heads of families. When the party was legalized in March, it found a widespread base of public sympathy and grass-roots support.

As the big winner in Sunday’s elections, Ennahda will send the largest single bloc of female lawmakers to the 217-member constituent assembly. The question now is how Ennahda women will govern. Are they unwitting dupes of Islamic patriarchy, or are they merely feminist activists who happen to wear head scarves?

After interviewing 46 female activists and candidates from Ennahda, I found that many turned to politics after experiencing job discrimination, arrests, or years in prison merely because they chose to wear the head scarf or because their families were suspected of Ennahda sympathies. For some of them, this election is as much about freedom of religious expression as anything else.

“I have a master’s degree in physics but I wasn’t allowed to teach for years because of this,” said a 43-year-old woman named Nesrine, tugging the corner of her floral-print hijab, a veil banned under Mr. Ben Ali but legalized since his departure. According to Mounia Brahim and Farida Labidi, 2 of the 13 members of Ennahda’s Executive Council, the party welcomes strong, critical women in its ranks. “Look at us,” Ms. Brahim said. “We’re doctors, teachers, wives, mothers — sometimes our husbands agree with our politics, sometimes they don’t. But we’re here and we’re active.”

These women are not likely to oppose women’s rights legislation. Ennahda women are, first and foremost, Tunisians. They are well educated, and their brand of Islamism, like Tunisian society as a whole, is relaxed and comparatively progressive. Since the 1950s, Tunisian women have enjoyed greater legal protections than their counterparts in other Arab states.

Tunisians are currently seeking to reconcile this legacy of largely French-inspired civil rights policies with the aspirations of a devout public. Ennahda’s challenge lies in striking the right balance.

To do so, the party has explicitly declared that it will emulate Turkey’s governing Justice and Development Party, known as the A.K.P., which has cracked down on corruption, involved women as equal political partners, and delivered stunning economic growth rates.

Replicating this model of moderation and pious prosperity will be hard work in Tunisia, a country with staggering levels of unemployment and 25 percent illiteracy. Turkish-style democracy may look less progressive in Tunis — where angry protests recently broke out at a screening of the film “Persepolis” — than in Istanbul, where bars and dance clubs dot the city’s streets.

And there is a chance, of course, that democratic gains for women could be reversed. As history has shown in America, France, Algeria and Iran, revolutionary movements don’t always lead to greater gender equality or more inclusive politics. Women often fight fearlessly in such liberation struggles only to be sidelined when new national governments form.

Tunisian women, however, are well poised to avoid this fate. Tunisia has done an excellent job of including women in its transitional institutions thus far. This is especially true when viewed in comparison with Egypt, where the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces recently banned women from heading any party lists.

Ennahda has thus far used its newfound political heft to stimulate rather than stifle women’s participation in Tunisian politics. Its activists are presenting a potentially more accessible model of “Islamist feminism” to many rural and socially conservative Tunisian women than that of secularist parties.

Vocal, active, and often veiled, they are comfortable with the language of piety and politics. Despite the fear mongering of secular skeptics and Western pundits, their actions and aspirations are far more reminiscent of Turkey’s A.K.P. than Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.

Monica Marks is a doctoral student in Middle Eastern Studies at Oxford University.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/27/opini ... n&emc=tya3
kmaherali
Posts: 25107
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Post by kmaherali »

Under-representation of women in leadership hampers businesses

Executives call for increased recognition of their potential

* By Samihah Zaman and Nathalie Farah, Staff Reporters
* Published: 00:00 November 25, 2011
* Gulf News

Abu Dhabi: The low numbers of women in entrepreneurial and managerial positions in the Arab world could be reducing profit margins, leading executives said at a conference in the capital yesterday.

Citing global studies that showed women-owned businesses grew faster than those owned by men, the executives called for the cultural recognition of the female potential in the UAE's corporate sector.

"Today, nearly 66 per cent of positions in the UAE's public sector are occupied by Emirati women, compared to only 4 per cent in private corporations," Almas Jiwani, president of the United Nations Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women, said.

Article continues below

"It is therefore critically important that they be empowered enough to occupy decision-making roles in private companies."

She was speaking at the third annual Women in Leadership Forum. The two day event, which took place at the Emirates Palace Hotel, ended yesterday.

"It is also surprising to see that despite the high number of educated women present in the Middle East, only a quarter of all women end up as active members of the workforce, which is a shame, since 77 per cent of them enrol at universities," Almas added.

Speakers also presented statistics highlighting their concerns about the lack of female leadership in organisations. Among them, in 2006, only 10 per cent of all managerial positions in the Arab world were held by women. They also stressed that although women earn only 10 per cent of the global income at present, Fortune 500 companies with a large female presence in senior positions earn 53 per cent more profit.

Verbally proficient

"Women are verbally proficient, sensitive to cultural differences and foster long-term collaborative relationships more frequently than male employees," Datin Paduka Seri Rosmah Mansour, wife of the Malaysian prime minister, said.

"Still, studies from around the world have shown that their potential as a source of economic growth has been neglected and underdeveloped."

Jiwani also noted that cultural beliefs about women's roles in the Middle East were a cause for their low participation in the workforce.

"Since women have a tougher time balancing work and life, lack of household support is another factor holding them back," she added.

The forum also highlighted several models for successful women's integration and entrepreneurship, such as the Coca Cola Company's ‘5 by 20' initiative, which began last year.

"Through this ten-year project, we will provide funding and logistical support to five million women worldwide," Dr Susan Mboya, group director of the Eurasia Africa Group for Women's Empowerment at the Coca Cola Company, said.

"In Egypt, Pakistan and Zambia, we are financing 200 women to start their own businesses, and the main reason why this initiative could have a significant impact on local communities is because we are also training women in vocational skills, and enabling them to secure bank loans."

Alongside the forum, the Shaikha Shamsa Bint Suhail Award for Creative Women was also awarded to 15 Emirati women for their achievements in various sectors.

http://gulfnews.com/business/general/un ... s-1.937188
kmaherali
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Post by kmaherali »

December 1, 2011
For Afghan Woman, Justice Runs Into Unforgiving Wall of Custom
By ALISSA J. RUBIN

KABUL, Afghanistan — When the Afghan government announced Thursday that it would pardon a woman who had been imprisoned for adultery after she reported that she had been raped, the decision seemed a clear victory for the many women here whose lives have been ground down by the Afghan justice system.

But when the announcement also made it clear that there was an expectation that the woman, Gulnaz, would agree to marry the man who raped her, the moment instead revealed the ways in which even efforts guided by the best intentions to redress violence against women here run up against the limits of change in a society where cultural practices are so powerful that few can resist them, not even the president.

The solution holds grave risks for Gulnaz, who uses one name, since the man could be so humiliated that he might kill his accuser, despite the risk of prosecution, or abuse her again.

More....

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/world ... &emc=tha22
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